


The Lives We Live Before the Present Moment

by lyhoradka



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003) - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Poor Life Choices, pretentious 3rd person, the Force as a conscious being
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-24
Updated: 2016-02-24
Packaged: 2018-05-23 01:11:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6099961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyhoradka/pseuds/lyhoradka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Jedi’s best-kept secret is that the Force lies.<br/>(Anakin finds Obi-Wan a flower.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lives We Live Before the Present Moment

_as if to say, the lives we live_

_before the present moment_

_are graves we walk away from._

_Except we don’t. We’re all_

_pillars of salt._

(Lisel Mueller, “Place and Time”)

* * *

The Jedi’s best-kept secret is that the Force lies.

The Force is an institution, an agenda; a thing that clings to each shred of life like a pest. A parasite. It finds Anakin Skywalker lost among the sand, and digs underneath his skin. _You cannot walk the sky but you can fly there_ , it tells him, and Anakin flies.

* * *

Anakin loves the Queen, and the Force is delighted. Anakin would abandon his vows for his Jedi Knight, and the Force brushes the sand from its child’s forehead each morning and kisses his eyelids and croons, _love him lovehim_. Anakin is not obedient, but in this he offers no resistance.

The Force drags a claw over Obi-Wan’s heart and slinks back to admire its work. It has songs for Skywalker, but Kenobi hears no whispers. The Force does not waste energy where it is not needed. _He’s loyal to_ people _, not to principles. And he expects loyalty in return. He will stop at nothing to save me, for example, because he thinks I would do the same for him._

The Force watches with its thousand eyes as Obi-Wan bleeds, and falters, and bleeds and bleeds. _Because he_ knows _I would do the same for him._

* * *

“What’s the most important thing to know about grafting Force-sensitive trees?” Obi-Wan is relentless, which is a charming character flaw on a good day, and an absolute fucking nightmare when they find themselves elbows-deep in petty criminals, radical self-proclaimed egalitarians, and – the real insult, as far as Anakin is concerned – the shittiest beer in the Force-forsaken galaxy.

“Cut at a forty-five degree angle.” Anakin steels himself for another sip, and calibrates the tension in his jaw to further perfect that brooding look that Obi-Wan is so fond of. Obi-Wan looks about as pleased as a bantha in a rainstorm.

“I’m serious.”

“Look.” Anakin abandons the carefully-cultivated air of affected misery in favor of leaning over the bar to look Obi-Wan squarely in the eye and take a sip of his equally awful beer. “Master. If you wanted flowers, you could have just asked.”

“Force-sensitive trees are not—”

“Force-sensitive flowers, then,” Anakin interrupts, unperturbed. “Can’t be that hard to find, surely. I bet there’s a swamp somewhere that grows them, plus or minus a few carnivorous species. Master Yoda would know.”

“Now, now, Anakin,” Obi-Wan mutters. He rescues his beer and carefully turns the glass, his mouth exactly one hundred and eighty degrees from where the imprints of Anakin’s lips are fading. Something thrums in his wrist once, then twice. “Master Yoda has got at least twenty four hours of lectures built up from the last five years that you’ve been avoiding him. And we don’t have that sort of time on our hands, even without bathroom breaks.”

He doesn’t glance up as Anakin laughs.

Across the shithole of a cantina, their target finally emerges from his drunken stupor and attempts to take off with a three thousand-year-old ring snatched from a Jedi temple on the edge of the Inner Rim. They don’t finish their beer – small blessings.

* * *

Two months later, Anakin disappears with only a half-assed note and a barely coherent plan, and reappears almost five weeks after that with a grin as wide as the Deep Core and a leather pouch so full of life that Obi-Wan stops in the middle of the room. He knows, logically, that stars seem dim because they are far away, that up-close they are burning gases and hot suns. But the warmth in Anakin’s pouch feels like the stars that Obi-Wan imagined when he was a kid, beautiful and untouchable. It feels like a heartbeat with no heart.

A Force-sensitive flower.

Anakin is strangely silent. _It was a joke_ , Obi-Wan wants to tell him. _A stupid joke that_ you _made, you didn’t have to._

“Well, if you wanted to be taken out for dinner too, you’re shit out of luck,” Anakin says at last. He refuses to meet Obi-Wan’s gaze, the tapestry of the first Jedi temple suddenly the most interesting thing in the room even though he has seen it countless times. It makes desperation well up in Obi-Wan’s ribs. Anakin is already shaking his head, setting the flower onto the table gingerly. “You need a haircut, by the way.”

 Obi-Wan finally finds his voice. “And you need a shave, you asshole.” He sounds stunned, which is fair but also faintly embarrassing. Anakin finally looks at him; Obi-Wan thinks, _oh fuck_.

“Believe it or not, certain parts of the Outer Rim are not very fond of razors. Maybe it’s a strategy for staying warm in those damn forests,” Anakin says.

“No swamp, then?”

“Master Yoda didn’t oblige.”

“This was –” Obi-Wan cuts himself off, because it seems that Anakin has gotten over his spell of discomfort and is staring him down with the kind of honesty that slices to the bone. His mouth twists like he’s tasted something bitter, knuckles turn white with tension – and _there’s_ the fire that has landed his sorry ass in trouble more times than either of them can remember. Obi-Wan fights an anticipatory shiver.

“—Foolish and irresponsible?” Anakin offers. “Not in adherence with the Jedi code of conduct? Unsafe?” He pauses, shoots a quick glance at the flower, and charges on. “Inappropriate?”

* * *

Anakin is so young and so beautiful and so in love with the world, with power, with change. The Force kisses his hair and his cheek, climbs the ridges of his spine like a mountain. Obi-Wan stands only breathing, only living. _He’ll love you forever_ , the Force tells Obi-Wan sweetly.

The Force is a liar.

It pauses, reconsiders, and grins. _He’ll love you until you die_.

There. Much better.

* * *

The Force-sensitive flower is every bit as useless as the Force-sensitive tree, which leaves Anakin unbearably smug. If two Jedi touched different leaves, they could pass a tiny current of Force through the plant between them. The ball of energy that Obi-Wan had first sensed stays trapped there, remarkable only because it lives in such a small host.

“You’re the one who dragged it from the outskirts of the galaxy,” Obi-Wan grumbles.

Anakin whistles quietly, a spring in his step. Obi-Wan attempts not to find it charming. “And anyway,” he adds. “Master Yoda claims ignorance of the errand. How did you know where to look?”

“The galaxy isn’t very large, all things considered,” Anakin has the gall to say. Obi-Wan scowls at him; Anakin tries not to find it charming.

“Keep your secrets, then.” Obi-Wan knocks their shoulders together without warning, sending Anakin stumbling just a few steps. There’s that thrum in his wrists again, where the vein is green and blue and kissing the surface. Heartbeat without a heart.

“Nah. Not from you.”

* * *

The Force is particularly fond of the thrum in Obi-Wan’s wrist. It watches it with curiosity, stokes the tempo each time Anakin Skywalker laughs, and flies, and throws an arm around Obi-Wan’s shoulders and puts his mouth to his Master’s temple and whispers, _we won_.

The scratch on Obi-Wan’s chest festers. The Force has no pity, no compassion, but it loves love. Obi-Wan’s love – guilty. Anakin’s love – misguided. Both of them – oath-breakers.

Ben Kenobi – looking back and back until he turns to salt, baking and blistering under the hot suns of Tatooine.

Heartbeat without a heart.

**Author's Note:**

> [hmu](http://lyhoradka.tumblr.com) for more of my otp - star wars/my pretentious inner loser


End file.
